


down near the sea the slow heart of the beacon flashes

by johniaurens



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Domestic, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Selkies, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-31 07:17:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8569291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johniaurens/pseuds/johniaurens
Summary: John has a fur rug by the foot of his bed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> _-the long way to you is still tied to me but it brought me to you_  
>  I keep wanting to give you what is already yours
> 
>  
> 
> idk i found a starbucks and had coffee and then, this,
> 
> title + the segment at the beginning of the notes are from "birthday" by w.s. merwin

John has a fur rug by the foot of his bed. 

It’s real fur, not very soft but beautiful, short, coarse, light brown with darker spots marking it like stars, like freckles, streaks of cream and muted green. Alex, upon seeing it, asks where he got it from because he’s never seen anything like it before and John shrugs. 

“It has been so long since I got it,” he says. “It has been so long.” 

-

“What animal is that, even,” asks Alex, face as deep in his coffee mug as it’ll go. 

“I’m not sure,” says John but it sounds like a lie. 

But that doesn’t matter, does it? It’s beautiful - Alex can’t stop looking at it sometimes, he stares at it and he pets it as if it were a cat, and John looks at him all weird, then, warm but heavy, and then Alex pets him instead and the heavy look leaves his eyes, his eyelids close all the way, and he’s soft again, warm and soft and golden in the light of the early afternoon. 

-

John makes Alex sleep on it sometimes. 

Well - it’s not that he _makes_ Alex sleep on it, but that Alex asks to sleep on the floor and John kisses his cheek and takes his wrists into his hands and makes him get on the floor, and the fur is always a little scratchy, a little coarse, a little rough, and it smells of seaweed and salt and John. Sometimes he’ll wake up to John asleep next to him, pillow right next to the rug. 

-

“Seal?” asks Alex. 

“Eh,” says John. He’s lying on the bed on his stomach with his legs in the air, doodling in his sketchbook. 

Alex frowns. 

“Stop,” says John without looking up, “Stop making that face. Don't make any faces. Chill. Stay still.” 

Alex forces his face back into neutrality. John sighs. He still hasn’t looked up but he seems to capital k Know when Alex is failing at whatever John wants him to do without even looking. 

“Alexander,” says John, and ah, it’s his full name now, is it, and Alex smiles because he’s a smug shit, “I have no idea what animal that rug is made of.” 

And that’s a lie, isn’t it? 

-

“Pretty eyes,” says Alex one lazy Saturday morning, traces the marker dots of John’s freckles on his collarbones, his neck, his jaw. Something flickers in John’s eyes - the sunlight illuminates them just so, makes the sea green of his irises sharp, pushes down the warm brown until he’s all predator teeth and dilated pupils. Like a cat ready to pounce. 

“Mm,” says John, takes Alex’s wrist into his mouth. 

Sharp teeth. A little pressure against the bone, the tendons there. Alex thinks about the soft insides of his wrists, his veins, his skin, and shivers. John pokes his tongue out, licks at his skin there. Kitten licks. Soft. Warm. A little wet. Alex closes his eyes. 

“Pretty,” repeats Alex. 

“Mm,” says John, and closes his eyes, rolls over.

-

“You know,” muses Alex into John’s stomach, “I still think that’s definitely seal.” 

“Why would anyone make a seal rug,” asks John, sleepy and disorientated. He, unlike Alex, needs a generous mug of coffee before reaching a state that could be described as “awake.” 

“I don’t know,” says Alex, because he doesn’t. “What’s that called. Not a memory. When you take something with you as a proof that something happened.” 

“Souvenir?” 

Alex makes a vague hand gesture. “I guess. No. Like. Maybe it was a pet and when it died it got made into a rug.” 

John groans. “It’s too early for this shit. Find a thesaurus or something. I don’t know. Why would anyone have a pet seal. Why would you turn your pet into a rug. Alexander.”

“Hm,” grumbles Alex. Pokes at John’s stomach. It’s pretty solid, because John saw it coming and flexed his abs. “Nice,” says Alex, and does it again. He likes John’s abs, sue him for being attracted to his boyfriend. He ghosts his hands over John’s stomach as if getting ready to tickle him just so John will flex his abs again. 

“Stop,” says John, and Alex pokes him in the ribs. 

“Killjoy,” mumbles Alex, and John bends over so he can take Alex into a headlock. 

-

 

Hercules has a dog. 

This isn’t really like, news, or a huge deal, but. Hercules is moving houses and his dog absolutely cannot stand being in the car and he cannot be left alone, apparently, so. 

Now John and Alex are babysitting a dog at their house?

“Dogsitting,” says John, petulantly.

“What’s the difference,” asks Alex just because he’s a little shit and likes annoying John, who loves both children and dogs but is as big of a pedant as Alex is when it comes to accurate language.

“Shut up,” says John, but there’s affection bleeding into his voice. “You’re in dog sitting duty. I gotta run to the store. We’re out of food.”

Which is. Very true. 

(It’s not that Alex doesn’t get the concept of eating food in order not to die, but like, if he can stay home and argue with people on the internet why would he do anything else? It’s not his fault that there’s nothing in the fridge. He picked up two packs of Monster from the store just a week ago.) 

John leaves. Alex is left alone with the dog. 

“You better not pee on the floor,” says Alex at the dog. The dog whimpers. Alex doesn’t trust in that answer, mostly because he has no idea what it means. Also, because this dog looks sort of evil. It has those _eyes_. 

He takes some preemptive measures: moves the living room rug, hides all the wires he can see, moves all the throw pillows from the floor back onto the couch, and then, when he catches the dog in their bedroom, smelling the maybe-seal rug insistently, he scoops the dog up with one arm and throws the rug into their closet with the other. 

“Nah,” says Alex to the dog. The dog looks sad. Evil, Alex thinks, evil dog. It has those evil eyes. Absolutely soulless. 

Alex lies down on the living room floor with his laptop on his stomach. The dog comes to put his nose on Alex’s shoulder, which is funny because his eyes cross over, and Alex himself just generally looks really funny lying there on his back, so he takes a selfie, and then he sends it to everyone he can think of because it’s absolutely hilarious. 

“Meme material,” he says in his text to Eliza, and then he sends the photo. Eliza texts him back with “why do you still have my number” to which Alexander just answers with the middle finger emoji. Eliza sends a string of eggplant emojis and the emoji that’s smiling with its eyes closed and somehow crossed. Alex knows for a fact that she’s making that face, in real life, at that very moment and smiles. 

John returns from the store, kisses his cheek, puts the groceries in the fridge. Walks into the bedroom. 

Alex expects to hear the sound of John taking off his coat, taking off his shoes, flipping through his books trying to find something to read - 

Instead, there’s a prolonged moment of absolute silence. 

“John?” asks Alex after it has been thirty seconds. 

“Alex,” says John back, voice thin, “where’s the rug?” 

“Um,” says Alex, “in the closet? I don’t trust this dog. He sniffed at it once and made a decision to pee on it, I think. I wasn’t sure if it was like, washable. Didn’t want to ruin it, you know.”

“Oh,” says John, relief in his voice, “oh. Oh. Good. Thank you, wow, I thought something terrible had happened to it, hah, Christ -”

And then the dog pees on the floor. 

-

“John?”

“Mhm?”

“Why’re you so obsessed with that rug?”

“Shut up, Alex.” 

“Okay.” 

“Stop poking me. Alexander - I mean it! Stop. You can go sleep on the rug.”

“...can I?”

“...go ahead.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re dumb.”

“Yeah.”

-

“Hey John?”

It’s two am. John blinks his eyes open. It looks like he’s having a lot of trouble with it. He probably is - it seems to always take about eighty percent of whatever energy John has in his body to wake up. Watching him wake up is draining. Exhausting. It makes Alex want to go back to sleep immediately.

“Yeah,” John says, in his If The House Isn’t Literally On Fire Currently At This Second You Better Shut The Fuck Up Immediately -voice. It’s also his Hello Naughty Boyfriend It’s Time For Sex -voice, though, but then again, what’s the difference, honestly.

Alex plucks out a hair from the rug, watches as John shivers on the bed. Just a little. A tiny, full-body shudder. Interesting. 

“This is definitely seal.”

John throws a pillow at him.

**Author's Note:**

> yell at me on tumblr @laflams or on twitter @gildedages than kks


End file.
